Youth Today

By Elliott Gluck

7/7/2016

During the last year, the House Committee on Education and the Workforce has continuously voiced the importance of returning power to states and districts when it comes to making decisions about how best to provide students with a well-rounded school experience.

With this messaging in mind, it is troubling to see the committee’s proposed child nutrition reauthorization (CNR), which would not only make the jobs of school administrators exceedingly difficult in the years to come, but leave many children across the country without access to the healthy meals they need to grow and thrive in school.

Twenty percent of America’s children currently live in poverty and more than 15 million kids struggle with food insecurity throughout the year. The programs authorized under the CNR, including the National School Lunch Program; School Breakfast Program; Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children; the Child and Adult Care Food Program and Summer Food Service Program help to ease the burden of poverty and food insecurity for many of these children every year. It is essential that Congress works to improve and expand these proven programs rather than put children at greater risk of hunger in the name of scaling back federal spending and attacking fraud.

The Improving Child Nutrition and Education Act of 2016, introduced by Rep. Todd Rokita, R-Indiana, threatens …

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